Sonnet CIII

Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,That having such a scope to show her pride,The argument all bare is of more worthThan when it hath my added praise beside!O! blame me not, if I no more can write!Look in your glass, and there appears a faceThat over-goes my blunt invention quite, Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,To mar the subject that before was well?For to no other pass my verses tendThan of your graces and your gifts to tell;And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

The poet
again parades his modesty, portraying
himself as an indifferent poet who cannot adequately sing the worth of
his
beloved. But of course the poem itself contradicts this stance, and the
poet, despite his disclaimers, is probably well aware of the relative
merits
of his verse when set against the youth's own frivolity and the worth
of
a lasting and true relationship. Yet he shows his generosity by
degrading
his talents to a humble level and putting the youth on the customary
high
pedestal. The closing couplet is perhaps double edged in that the
'more,
much more' which the mirror shows is the effect of the encroachment of
lines
and wrinkles. The following sonnet pretends to deny this perception,
saying
it is unworthy of notice. But alas, the face which Narcissus saw, when
he
gazed at his own image reflected in the water, was the face of time and
death.

The 1609 Quarto Version

ALack what pouerty my Muſe brings forth,
That hauing ſuch a skope to ſhow her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Then when it hath my added praiſe beſide.
Oh blame me not if I no more can write!
Looke in your glaſſe and there appeares a face,
That ouer-goes my blunt inuention quite,
Dulling my lines,and doing me diſgrace.
Were it not ſinfull then ſtriuing to mend,
To marre the ſubiect that before was well,
For to no other paſſe my verſes tend,
Then of your graces and your gifts to tell.
And more,much more then in my verſe can ſit,
Your owne glaſſe ſhowes you,when you looke in it.

such
a scope = such spacious and rich
opportunities and themes (i.e. the beloved youth in all his glory).
to show her pride = to show off her excellence, to be
ostentatiously
showy.

3. The argument all bare is of more worth

The
argument = the subject matter;
all bare = when it is naked and unadorned. Some editors put
commas after
'argument' and 'bare', emphasising that this line is to be taken in
conjunction
with the following one. As it stands one temporarily takes it to mean
that
the argument itself is bare of extra worth and line 4 has to be adapted
to fit that meaning. Since Q gives Then,which is
frequently emended
to than, (the spellings were interchangeable, see
lines 12 &
13 ), we could take it that in this case the emendation is wrong, and
that
it is correctly 'then', the demonstrative adverb of time. The whole
would
then mean 'The subject matter which my Muse brings forth
(i.e.descriptions
of you) is naked and stripped of extra worth even at those very times
when
it is adorned with my poetic fancies'. This sense would be helped by
placing
a comma after then, as below:
The argument all bare is of more worth,
Then, when it hath my added praise beside!Note that the poet and his Muse eventually become one
and the same.
Retaining the current pointing and wording, the two lines may be
glossed
as 'The subject matter (you) is more worthy, standing on its own, than
when
it is adorned with my poetic flourishes'.

4. Than when it hath my added praise beside!

See the
note above. added praise beside
- beside is tautological, but it adds to the sense of a heaping up of
encomiums,
and provides the necessary rhyme.

5. O! blame me not, if I no more can write!

My
Muse of line 1 has now become the
poet himself, the 'I' who can no longer write, whose inspiration has
all
dried up. Throughout this group of four sonnets, the idea of a tired
Muse
has been only a thin disguise for a tired love and a sluggard desire to
be inspired.

6. Look in your glass, and there appears a face

your
glass = your mirror. 'Glass'
occures ten times in the Sonnets. Apart from Sonnet 5, where it means
the
substance 'glass', 'mirror' is its usual meaning. In 126 it probably
also
means 'hour-glass'.

Were
it not sinful = would it not
be sinful if I were to etc.
striving to mend = as a result of striving to improve (your
image, the
description of you).

10. To mar the subject that before was well?

To
mar the subject = to do damage
to you, the subject of my verse.
that before was well = you who, before I started to praise
you, were
already excellent in your own person.

11. For to no other pass my verses tend

no
other pass = no other aim or issue.
tend = strive, aim for.

12. Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

your graces and your gifts = your elegant and graceful person and your talents. Elsewhere in the Sonnets the word gifts is used in the sense of talents, qualities which nature has bestowed (11, 60), and in 87 it refers to the gift of love and friendship which the youth has bestowed on the poet.

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, 87

There is a slight possibility that here it also refers to pecuniary and perhaps other material gifts. There is a story, first recorded by Rowe in 1709, but unverifiable, that Southampton gave Shakespeare a gift of £1000 to buy a property. (S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare's Lives, Oxford 1993, p.90). In today's terms (400 years later) this would be an enormous sum of money, equivalent perhaps to £200,000, and it would certainly have merited praise and gratitude. The story is not entirely improbable in that Southampton is known to have been profligate. He is reputed to have lost 1800 crowns at a Parisian tennis match when celebrating the birth of his first child. (P. Quennel, Shakespeare, London 1963, p.118, footnote 2.)

13. And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,

more, much more - see the introductory
comment above. The more that he sees may not be to
his liking.
in my verse can sit = than can be placed in my verse, than my
verse
can contain. to sit is simply to be present at, or
in.

14. Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

glass
= mirror, see above, line 6.
The thought is that the youth's reflection in the mirror, the reality
that
he sees there, is far richer than anything that the poet can say of him
in verse. The philosophical problem is that an image in the mirror is
no
more 'the thing itself' than is the image depicted, described,
delineated
and painted in verse. The narcissistic fulfilment of himself, achieved
by
gazing in the mirror, may therefore be as fatuous and unfulfilling as
listening
to the songs of poets who sing his praises.